Is Our Universe Really 'Slip Slidin Away'?

September 26, 2014 10:03 PM

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Ok. Some corners of the news media have headlined a comment made by Stephen Hawkings about Hawkings says Higgs Boson could destroy the universe. To their credit, the stories you read are presented tongue-in-cheek with the disclaimer that it is really unlikely that this will happen. But if it does, our familiar universe will simply wink-out and be replaced by another kind of universe based upon different laws. Presumably the transition will be instantaneous and you will not feel a thing.

Here's why. Space is not empty but is permeated everywhere by the Higgs field: from the privacy of your bathroom to the most distant reaches of our universe. But because it is a field in Nature, it allows 'empty space' to have its own energy as this field interacts with itself. Physicists think of t...